Under the Blue Light
by code epic
Summary: Cid and Seifer: revolution in retrospect. A post-game one-shot.


Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII. Cid Kramer and Seifer Almasy belong to Squaresoft. I make no money from this. Insert witty comment here.

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"Under the Blue Light" by code epic.

Rating: PG.

Word Count: 800.

Warnings: None.

Spoilers: It takes place post-game.

Archive: Ask, and ye probably shall receive.

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**Under the Blue Light**

_I don't want to wake up  
Lost in the dreams of our fathers  
Oh, it's such a waste child  
To live and die for the dreams of our fathers_

- Dave Matthews Band, "Dreams of Our Fathers"

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Sometimes Cid Kramer can almost believe that all a headmaster does is sign papers.

On the desk in front of him is a file. Its blue cover tells him that it is a student file, but it is twice as thick as the average student file. Then again, this particular student has always been anything but average.

(Had. It is "Had been," now. You keep forgetting.)

The upper half of the file is warped out of shape by the twin sheaves of pink and yellow slips paper-clipped along the top edge. Pink for tardy and yellow for absent, Cid's protocol-stuffed mind supplies automatically.

(At the start of the summer when he was seventeen, when one still could refer to him by "has" and not "had," a paper came across your desk.)

Inside the file, tucked between collated leaves of white paper which convey in a clinical typeface the results of numerous psych evaluations, are flimsy green sheets. Cid grasps the corner of one near the bottom of the file and pulls it out carefully.

(Thin and green for class schedules. You know better than your own breathing the cycles of the Garden year. The school year is divided into a fall-winter and a winter-spring semester, during both of which all cadets study the same things according to a rigorous curriculum tiered out by age and ability. In the summers, cadets are free to go home - at least, those who have one are free to go. To keep busy the orphans, and there are so horribly many, who must stay at the Garden over the summer, they are required to take elective courses.

Which is why you had him in your office one bright morning near the start of the summer when he was seventeen.)

Cid begins to read the paper, only to realize that he is not wearing his spectacles. There is a minute of vest-patting before he spots them sitting near the edge of his desk. He slides them onto the bridge of his nose and tries not to notice that his hands are shaking subtly.

("What the he - What am I here for? Chicken-wuss _was_ running in the cafeteria yesterday, I swear.")

Cid reads.

("This isn't about Cadet Dincht, though you do need to stop calling him Chicken-wuss. Ahem, I see you've signed up for your summer electives already."

"Yeah. What about it?" Broad, insolent syllables.

"I should've told you sooner, before you went to the trouble of doing so. You've been selected to patrol a hotspot over the summer."

"I'm not a SeeD." Still defiant, even with the memory of two failed field exams clear behind green eyes.

"We have a backlog of SeeD contracts, and this hotspot is only a level four. Your task is to survey and report. You are forbidden, and I mean _forbidden,_ to actively participate on either side of this Hyne-blasted mess." An afterthought: "And it'll be a good experience for you."

A snort. One hand on hip, crooking the long lean line of his body.

"Fine. Not like I care either way. Where am I going?")

Yes, there it is. Suddenly Cid notices how warm on the back of his neck the sunlight streaming in through the glass canopy is as he reads and re-reads the innocuous string of words: _HIST302-01, The History and Theories of Revolutions and Revolutionaries._

("You're going to Timber, Seifer."

You thought you were saving the world, then. The dusty sunbeams turned his golden hair into a halo.)

Sometimes Cid Kramer can almost believe that all a headmaster does is sign papers. As gently as he would touch his wife, he tucks the fragile green sheet back into the folder, this time at the very end of the file where one last document waits for his signature.

(At least you were not the one who had to sign his execution order.)

Cid Kramer signs his own name in heavy, strong loops across the recipient line of the death certificate even while the sun keeps pouring in - in and in like a flood, spilling out across his shoulders and desk, to drown the black letters in an ocean of blue light.

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_Under the blue light in the sky  
My empty pages are filling up  
With these wicked lies  
But I hear deep in myself  
An echo, an echo  
Of empty, empty emptiness  
Comes up and swells inside_

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A/N: Thanks to Squeemu for challenging me to write a drabble with the elements, "Cid, Seifer, and rebellion/revolution against society." Many thanks to tenshi no ai, The Jack of Spades, Supremia, and Lucrecia LeVrai for taking the time to review my first FFX-related FFnet offering, "Metronome"; and to delirium42 for reviewing in addition to "Metronome" my New X-Men piece, "A Couplet From Kipling."

Reviews, feedback, and flames are appreciated. More of my writing can be found on my LJ, which is linked to in my author profile.


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